Tuesday, February 10, 2009

The life of a Triops

A few weeks ago Brian took the kids to the Aquarium, and let Chase get a little bag of Triops Eggs from the gift shop. Chase called home ecstatic of course: "Mom! I GOT REAL FISH!" Of course the first thing I said was "Let me talk to your Dad." But then I found out they were little sea monkey type creatures that only live for 20 days, so I relaxed. Sure enough the little microscopic eggs produced microscopic creatures after two days. We could barely see them with the naked eye, but were grateful that they even hatched at all.

Chase was very proud - telling everyone about how tiny and cute his little pets were. He wanted to bring them to show and tell (we settled on a picture of them) and they became his main topic of conversation. And rightly so: they were growing and changing at an alarming rate! Every day they doubled in size 'till they were about an inch long. Chase took great care to feed them and provide fresh water in their bowl. Then it was time for 'the talk'. Twenty days was about up, and we knew we would start losing them soon. We asked Chase what he would like to do when they died, and he said he wanted to bury them in the back yard. Then he drew a nice picture of them to lay on top of their 'grave'. We were ready - we even had a special FHE on death. Sure enough, the little creatures somehow knew that their 20 day existence was over - and five of the six of them died within 24 hours of each other. The last one is miraculously still living, and Chase has named him 'Black Beard' because he's so tough!